


we're changing destiny

by shadowdance



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4473419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowdance/pseuds/shadowdance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(your fate has been sold; how hard is it to change it?)</p><p>Lucina and Yarne try to carry out a plan that hasn't been written.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're changing destiny

**Author's Note:**

> lon'qu voice: you're no writer
> 
> but anyways this is for a friend of mine (you know who you are), I hope u like it
> 
> my first fanfic up on this website as well (huzzah huzzah but i am not proud of it at all.) bad future stuff is iffy because I don't know my shit, so if you notice something wrong, feel free to point it out to me.

_____________________

 

 

The soldier is injured, his face pale and shining with sweat. There is a dark purple spot on his tunic, the blue tarp mixing with redness, and it spreads at an alarming rate.

Lucina knows she should call for a healer - and by 'healer' she means Brady, because every other healer is either dead or missing - but she suddenly feels dread settle in her stomach, like stones, and she can't move.

Because this soldier is a particular soldier called a messenger, and they only come when someone is dead or dying. They've been coming to alert her more and more over the days. But the only fighters that were sent out this time were Frederick, Aunt Lissa, and Chrom.

He looks at her, and there is sorrow in his eyes. "I'm sorry," he says.

Lucina doesn't need to ask.

But the dam inside of her, the one she built when her mother died, the one that prevents all of her grief, all of her anger, all of her _guilt_ , explodes, shatters into pieces. The tears prick her eyes and she wipes them away angrily, because she is Lucina and Lucina does not cry.

(At least, not in front of people.)

The soldier grimaces. He won't last much longer, and Lucina knows she should do something, take action,  _now._ But her mouth feels like lead and she's just suddenly so, so tired.

The soldier slips to the floor, and he doesn't move. Lucina stares at him.

 _Thank you_ , she tries to say, but her voice fails her.

__

Severa's hair is long, spilling down her back and over her shoulders. She says, "So, Chrom's dead."

Inigo's eyes are trained stubbornly on the ground. "Shut up," he says. His voice is hollow.

Severa scuffs her foot. She doesn't say anything, but Lucina can feel her eyes dart towards her. In fact, she knows that everyone (minus her brother) is looking at her - Noire, Brady, Cynthia, Owain, Laurent, Kjelle, Yarne, Nah, even Gerome. They want her to tell them, what happens next. What the next step of the plan is.

But her mind is just a constant blank, constantly screaming _why why why why why why why why why._ She knows in her heart Chrom was not invincible, but it's still hard to picture her father slain on the ground.

She has to excuse herself, telling them that she'll be back in a minute, and slips away, inside her tent. She can hear their whispers, and she feels like she's let them down.

It's not the end of the world, she starts to tell herself, before she realizes that yes, it is. 

__

"Can I come in?"

Yarne's voice floats outside her tent. Lucina considers telling him no, send him away like she usually does, but something in her decides against it.

His eyes are wild when he walks in. Matted fur, that certain tuft of hair sticking up, and a dark purple stone in his hands. "It's a beast stone," he says when Lucina inquires about it.

She nods and sits on her cot. Yarne sits on the ground.

"Do you have any idea what you're going to do next?" he asks. There's fear edging in his voice.

Lucina bites her lip and nods. It's painful. 

"You're lying," Yarne says, so matter-of-factly that it pricks Lucina in the wrong way.

"I am not."

"You are, too."

"Yarne." Her voice is firm, sharp, and he withdraws. "I. Am. Not."

She thinks she can hear him mutter, "you are" under his breath, but she doesn't press on it. She doesn't have time for childish arguments. She needs a plan, and quick.

Absently, she brushes her blue bangs out of her face, revealing her mark, and Yarne looks at her weird before asking, "Do you miss him?"

She feels stupid for responding with "Miss who?" because it's glaringly obvious who Yarne is referencing to.

He spells it out for her anyways, speaking low and gently, "Chrom," and it's enough to give her a lump in the throat and a small gasp. Yarne flinches, because he knows he did something, probably startle her emotions, just a little bit.

But Lucina nods anyways, because grieving is not something she does, least in front of people. 

(There are a lot of things Lucina does not do in front of people. But Yarne is half-rabbit, after all, so _maybe_ he's the exception to this.)

"I miss Panne all the time," Yarne says, and his voice is matter-of-fact again. He doesn't sound upset at all, but he can't meet Lucina's eyes. It makes Lucina uncomfortable. He's kind of reminding her of herself. "She was a good mother."

Lucina nods again. She feels like that's the only thing she can do right now.

Yarne changes the subject again, because he can see that she's uncomfortable and the last thing he wants to do is make her feel that way. "So, uh…we live in hell now."

"That's one word for it." Lucina is surprised by how strong her voice sounds.

Yarne shivers. "It's more likely for me to go extinct here, then."

"Not on my watch." No one else is dying, Lucina tells herself. No more deaths. No more messengers.

Yarne smiles briefly then. It's rare to see him smile. "Sounds like something Chrom would say. Guess Inigo's right; you really are your father's daughter."

"If I really was Chrom's daughter, wouldn't I have known how to prevent his death?"

Yarne has nothing to say to this.

They sit in silence for a bit, before Yarne crawls out of the tent and Lucina collapses against her cot. She closes her eyes and wishes that someone, anyone, was here to guide her, and wishes that when she opens her eyes they would appear before her.

When she opens her eyes, she find herself utterly alone. But Lucina wasn't expecting anyone, anyways, and maybe that's why her heart keeps thudding against her chest.

__

Noire finds the Falchion.

"I was just walking and it was in the field and I-I don't know how it got there-" she starts to explain, the words pouring out of her mouth, and Lucina can only shut her up when she takes Falchion and thanks her.

Yarne eyes the sword with weariness and approval. "It looks like a strong sword," he says. "Will it be enough to protect someone from dying?"

"You're funny," Lucina deadpans, and swings the blade in the air. It feels heavy, but at the same time it feels right. She imagines Chrom using this, pointing the blade at Grima, and her heart lurches.

"Can you use it?" Yarne asks.

Lucina runs her fingers over the blade and points to a log. She remembers what Chrom told her, about the Falchion and how it is bound to Ylissean royalty. Lucina thinks she can use it, but she can never be sure.

"Pull that log over, and we'll find out."

He does, and Lucina raises the sword, focusing all her energy, her anger at Grima, at this wasteland, into it.

She slashes through the log so hard it splits evenly.

Yarne gapes at her, eyes wide, mouth open, but when he catches Lucina's eyes he abruptly closes it. "I guess that's a yes."

"Naturally," Lucina says. She throws the sword over her shoulder, and though it weighs her down, she keeps walking.

__

Kjelle's arms are folded. She sneers at Lucina. "It's been three days, and we're still living _here_. Do you have a plan?"

"Leave her alone," Yarne says. Kjelle stomps towards him, and he rears backwards.

Lucina puts her head in her hands. Her father would have a plan by now - no. It wouldn't be her father, it would've been his _tactician_ who would've had a plan by now.

She's not a tactician. She puts on a show, pretends she is, but she's just a child pretending to be a warlord. Everyone's fate plays in her hands, but she doesn't know what she's doing with it.

She closes her eyes and prays, prays with all her heart to Naga, that there is a ray of light in this wasteland.

__

Perhaps it's a miracle, perhaps it's not, but Nah stops in front of her a few hours later and says, "Naga spoke to me. She's doing a ritual."

"Because you have a pipeline to the gods," Severa says dryly.

Nah ignores her, and goes on. "She's sending the wielder of the Falchion and her companions back into time. To prevent this from happening." She gestures to the moody gray sky.

The wielder of the Falchion. Suddenly, the sword almost seems to drag her down, it grows heavy.

Lucina nods as if she understands, because that's the role she's supposed to play. "Thank you, Nah."

The little manakete nods and scuttles away. Lucina looks at the sky, wondering if Naga is hiding behind the clouds, thinking that this is a smart choice. 

She catches Yarne's eye, leaning against a tree. She asks, "Are you coming with me?"

His expression is unreadable when he replies, "If I don't go extinct."

__

Lucina looks at her reflection through the dull blade of Falchion and decides that she should not go back in time as herself.

"I don't want my identity to be revealed," she says to the others when she tells them. "Father would recognize me and that might throw things out of proportion."

"I fail to see what you mean," Severa says, but Lucina did not expect her to get it.

Cynthia does Lucina's hair for her, gathering the blue waterfall and ties it back until the hair only reaches her chin, choppy and short. Gerome presses his mask into her hands; it's rough and dark. "Hide your Mark," he says.

When Lucina walks out to show herself off to Yarne and Inigo, they both raise an eyebrow. "You look different," Inigo says.

"In a good way," Yarne adds hurriedly. "I mean, you look different, but you still look good."

"It's the intention to look different," Lucina says, raising Falchion and looking at herself again. She doesn't even recognize herself, but then again, she doesn't know who herself is anymore.

__

Owain is pacing back and forth. When he sees Lucina, his eyes light up, and he runs over to her. "You look heroic," he says excitedly, wringing his hands together. "But the name 'Lucina' does not suit this persona."

She doesn't know whether to take that as an insult or not. "Okay."

Owain scratches his head. "Unfortunately, though, the Great Owain is out of name ideas." Lucina doesn't want anything long or fancy anyways, but telling that to Owain would probably crush his fierce spirit, so she stays quiet.

To her surprise, it is Yarne who comes up with the name. "How about Marth, like the Hero King?"

Marth.

Her ancestor. Lucina closes her eyes for a minute, and nods. She prays to him, wherever he may be now, that he will pour all of his strength into her and help her fix this this mess.

__

Yarne comes to her late at night, when Lucina is lying on her cot and finally(finally) thinking about the consequences of time traveling. He looks at her, then at his feet, and says, "I'm scared."

 _You're always scared_ , Lucina wants to say, but she settles on replying with, "Don't be."

He looks up again, and meets her eyes. She notices, for once, that his eyes are a dark brown, kind of like chocolate. She wonders why she hasn't noticed this before. "We're going back into _time_ , Lucina. What if something happens, and I get stuck in the middle of two parallel universes? Or what if only half of me comes to the past?"

"That's ridiculous," Lucina says. "That won't happen."

He goes to sit by her, the cot groaning under the weight of both of them. "Yeah, those might not happen. But what if I die before finding Panne? How ridiculous is that idea?"

Lucina doesn't say anything, but the silence is a good enough answer for Yarne.

"You don't have to come," she finally says, but Yarne shakes his head. He reaches for her hand; his is warm and soft in hers.

"I don't want to live here, the chances of me going extinct are probably higher here than the past. And I want to see Panne, and my father, again. But I don't know if it's safe to go back."

It's not, Lucina thinks, squeezing his hand gently. Everything is at a risk and everything could go wrong. She's taking the leap, closing her eyes, and hoping she'll land on two feet when she opens them.

"Do you trust me?" she asks, but she already knows the answer.

"I trust you enough to follow you," he responds, but he's looking at their hands intertwined, not at her. "You won't leave me there, right? I need you to protect me."

"I won't," Lucina says. "I promise."

Yarne looks at her with something in his eyes, and that's when Lucina remembers: his father, leaning down to him, whispering that he'll come back, he promises.

(And he did, in a dark wooden box and wide red eyes, blank and unseeing.)

"Don't make a promise you can't keep," he says. "You'll confuse me."

__

Lucina can feel it in her bones the next day, when the black clouds lighten up to a silver; it's the day, the day to go back.

Everyone else is silent when she walks out; Nah's whole body trembles, and her brother is muttering words of encouragement to Brady and Owain. Gerome stands a little ways off, next to Minerva; Yarne is barely even in her line of sight, a small dot. When Lucina nears towards him, she sees his face is deathly pale.

"Today's the day," she says.

His eyes are wide. He blurts out, "I can't do this. I really can't."

Lucina takes his arm into hers and says, "Don't be afraid."

" _I don't want to die._ " His voice is trembling, and he ducks his head.

She feels bad when she says, "You will die if you stay here."

Yarne's body starts to shake, and he ducks his head down. He won't meet her eyes; he's too embarrassed.

Lucina says, "Yarne, I won't deny that going back in time is not safe. But I would never send you somewhere where you would die intentionally. I want you to live. And you won't live if you stay here, in this baron wasteland."

His ears flatten, he still won't meet her eyes, but when Lucina takes his hand and walks towards the camp, he doesn't resist.

__

The portal is shimmery, blue and green and silver. It is like water, rippling and weaving.

Yarne says, "Whoa." 

Lucina walks towards the portal. She's glad that the mask (partially) covers her face, her eyes. That way no one can see the fear in her eyes.

"I'm going in," she says, her voice tight.

Yarne swallows. He says carefully, "If - when - I say you again, try to be alive? I need you."

Lucina waits for the usual words, the hasty words  _to protect me_ fall out in a rush, but Yarne just stares at her, waiting for her response, her reassurance.

"I won't fail," she says to him. "I'll come back alive."

He smiles, and quickly, he leans over and kisses her cheek, lightning-fast, short and sweet. Redness blooms from Lucina's cheeks, and she pushes the mask up farther, glad that it hides at least some of her face.

"Good luck," he says, and that's the last thing Lucina hears before she jumps in the portal.


End file.
